Friday, January 16, 2004Volume 4, Issue 1
Materials Day 2004
Materials Day at Penn State
April 15, 2004
HUB-Robeson, Alumni Hall
Please mark your calendars and plan to attend and participate in this campus-wide event.
We will present the MRI Student and Post-Doc Awards for outstanding accomplishments based on a published paper, thesis or formal report. Please take a moment to reflect on the students and post-docs in your area who might qualify.
The criteria, eligibility requirements can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v04i01/Criteria.pdf
The nomination form can be found at:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/ematerials/v04i01/Nomination_form.pdf
NOW, is the right time to take a look and begin to put the package together.
The Franklin Institute Awards
The Franklin Institute is proud to announce that a special reception will be held on April 29, 2004, at which time Professor Robert E. Newnham will receive the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Electrical Engineering. The award is made in recognition of Professor Newnham's pioneer groundwork in understanding the properties of composite piezoelectric materials for use as transducers, sensors, and actuators.
His early papers in this field demonstrated the importance of connectivity patterns and various strain amplification mechanisms within the composites, and provided a frame of reference for scientists and engineers working in underwater acoustics, bioengineering, and materials science. During the past three decades Professor Newnham, Professor Eric Cross, and their colleagues at Penn State have developed dozens of new ferroelectric materials and devices for use in engineering systems. Their scientific contributions to the field have led to impressive improvements in sonar systems, non-destructive testing, and vibration control, and ultrasound imaging technology.
Professor Newnham was educated at Hartwick College (B.S., mathematics), Colorado State University (M.S., physics), The Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D. physics) and Cambridge University (Ph.D., crystallography). Prior to joining the Penn State faculty, he worked at the Laboratory for Insulation Research at M.I.T. The author of more than 500 research papers and 20 patents, Bob has been active in the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the American Ceramic Society, the Materials Research Society, and the American Crystallographic Association. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineers, the International Academy of Ceramics, and has received numerous awards for his teaching and research.
On April 28, 2004, there will be a special Symposium organized by Peter Lewis of Drexel University who nominated Professor Newnham for this prestigious award and MRI.
Faculty Spotlight
Jim Adair
Professor of Materials Science and Engineering
Director, NSF Particulate Materials Center (PMC)
jha3@psu.edu
http://www.mri.psu.edu/centers/pmc/
Jim Adair likes to say that the basic research he does in his lab and for the PMC can be done in any colloidal chemistry lab - a reference to the level of simplicity he likes to maintain when developing materials and processes for science and industry. "My attitude towards research that's relevant on an industrial scale is that if I can't do a particular experiment using standard colloidal chemistry, I really need to think carefully if I really want to do it. My rule of thumb is, if you can do it with simple chemistry tools, then industry won't have many problems translating our technology from our bench top to their industrial scale."
It's hard to believe his claim when you tour his labs and see some of the tools he and his staff use on a daily basis, but the installations are clean and safe and his people are only too happy to show you how easy it is to make a 1 nanometer thick coating using a penlight battery. "I've been working with nanoparticles ever since I started working, except we didn't call them that. Nanoparticles were not the focus in the early 1980s - more often than not it was an inconvenience to run across them because we were concerned about making polycrystalline inorganic materials from powders that might have larger grain sizes on the order of 100 nm to maybe 5,000 nm (5 microns). The first patent I ever got was on zirconia, where it's almost impossible not to make nanoparticles. We're making bulk nanocrystalline zirconia (> 2 mm to 2 cm) right now as well as diamond coatings for semiconductors."
For the full story go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/articles/JimAdair/
The 21st Century Nanotechnology Research and Development Act
On December 3rd, 2003, President Bush signed a bill that authorizes $3.7 billion for nanotechnology research to develop and build electronic circuits and devices from single atoms and molecules. The term "nanotechnology" refers to the ability to control matter at both the atomic and molecular level. Scientists predict that nanoscale science and technology will yield revolutionary materials and systems---creating new products, jobs, markets, and industries. Such developments are expected to transform the areas of electronics, medicine, telecommunications, homeland security, etc. For example, navy ship coatings and liposomes (designed to improve delivery of medicines) are nanoscale products that are already in use. The National Science Foundation estimates that in little more than a decade, it is possible that there will be over $1 trillion nanotechnology applications in the global economy.
View article:
http://www.aascu.org/grc/publications/grantweek/121503.htm
AUTM: University Tech Commercialization Revenues Continues To Rise
The promise of high-wage jobs, increased business competitiveness and wealth creation makes the commercialization of university research a central element in the technology-based economic development strategies of many states, provinces and regions of North America. With figures such as $1.267 billion in aggregate adjusted gross licensing income and more than $1 billion in running royalty income on product sales, the latest and most comprehensive survey released by the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) reveals why.
AUTM Licensing Survey: FY 2002 provides information about licensing activities at 222 U.S. and Canadian universities, hospitals and research institutions, a record high for the 12th annual publication. Despite the severity and depth of the national recession, the survey reports marked increases across the board for sponsored research expenditures, invention disclosures, U.S. patent applications, licenses and options, license-related income and new products.
When compared with FY 2001 figures, sponsored research expenditures are up 16.6 percent, invention disclosures grew 14.8 percent, U.S. patent applications are up 13.6 percent, licenses and options increased by 15.2 percent, license-related income is up 11.9 percent and new products rose by 58.9 percent.
A list of the top 25 U.S. research institutions, ranked by adjusted gross licensing revenues for 2002 is available at http://www.ssti.org/Digest/Tables/121203t.htm. The top Canadian institution in the same category was the Université de Sherbrooke, coming in at 27th overall.
Not all news from the survey was positive, however, as other key findings point to the strain the economic recession placed on entrepreneurship and industrial research:
- Federal funding for research continued to climb, but industrial funding grew at only one-third that rate, and research funding linked to licenses and options - a major incentive for academic scientists to participate in the technology transfer process - declined.
- The share of transactions with start-up companies and large companies also declined since FY 2001. However, small companies increased activity to offset the shortfall.
- The absence of an initial public offerings window and the low level of stock prices resulted in a significant decrease in license income from stock liquidation.
- Reflecting the difficult conditions in the venture capital industry, the number of new start-ups fell, and the number of start-ups going out of business increased.
Despite the challenges, institutions continue to bring new innovations to the public and forge more partnerships than they had prior to the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, AUTM observes. In general, human resources in reporting institutions' technology transfer offices increased, yielding a growth in the number of invention disclosures and patents filed.
Since AUTM updated the survey tool in 1998 to add the ability to collect data about new products, institutions have reported more than 2,000 new products, ranging from medical breakthroughs to information technology advances to environmentally friendly manufacturing techniques. In the 2002 survey, respondents identified 569 products that were first made commercially available to the public in fiscal year 2002.
A full summary of the AUTM Licensing Survey: FY 2002 is available for purchase from AUTM. The public version of the summary is similar, but does not contain specific institutional information; it is available for download at http://www.autm.net
Materials Seminars
Friday, January 23, 2004Time: 10:30 AMTuesday, January 27, 2004
Location: 110 Wartik Laboratory
Title: Non-Classical Heat and Mass Transport in Polymers
Speaker: David Venerus, Illinois Institute of Technology
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: 202 Steidle
Title: Carbon Nanotubes
Speaker: Joe Lyding, University of Illinois
For a complete list of upcoming materials-related seminars go to:
http://www.mri.psu.edu/seminars.asp
Funding Opportunities
- ARMY Nonlinear Optics
- ARMY Environmental Monitoring Utilizing Biological/Biomolecular Processes Cellular and Subcellular
- ARMY Novel and Highly Scalable Diode-Pumped Solid State Lasers
- NIST Predicting Long-Term Performance from Nano-Molecular Degradation Data for Pigmented Polymeric Coatings
- ARMY Quantum Electro-Magnetic Devices
- ARMY Electromagnetics and RF Circuit Integration
- NIH NCRR Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) Program
- NSF Sensors and Sensor Networks
- ARMY Materials Design
- AIR FORCE Advanced Concepts for Hight Temperature Tribology
- NSF Grants for the Department-Level Reform of Undergraduate Engineering Education
- DOT Corrosion Monitoring Research Study for New York City Bridges, register to receive notification at site
- DOE Natural and Accelerated Bioremediation Research Program
- Air Force Life Prediction and Durability of Aerospace Materials, letters on intent due 1/16
- DARPA Terahertz Imaging Focal Plane Array Technology (TIFT)
- DARPA MEMS Exchange (MX)
